Generic rolling bearings are used as axial/radial bearings or tilting moment bearings in machine tools, such as in circular tables, for instance. However, they are also employed where lower demands are placed on the rolling bearings, for example in the axes of rotation in materials handling machinery or in solar panels.
Prior art rolling bearing types for applications of this nature are axial/radial cylindrical roller bearings, crossed roller bearings, or inclined roller bearings, although these have some disadvantageous characteristics. For instance, such cylindrical roller bearings generally are poorly suited for high rotational speeds, and, because of their customary multi-part construction, have structural disadvantages in their stiffness. The cited crossed roller bearing types have only limited load capacity, stiffness, and suitability for high rotational speeds. Prior art generic inclined roller bearings, like crossed roller bearings, disadvantageously have fill plugs for sealing filling openings in the bearing rings, often cannot be screwed on, do not constitute a structural unit, and thus are only of limited suitability for machine tools in the prior art form.
Thus, known from DE 10 2007 013,944 A1 are double-row inclined roller bearings with a one-piece outer bearing ring and a one-piece inner bearing ring, between which are arranged two rows of cylindrical rolling elements in an “O” arrangement. These inclined roller bearings are filled through a filling opening that is inclined radially outward in the outer bearing ring and inclined radially inward in the inner bearing ring. After the rolling elements have been placed in the intermediate space between the bearing rings, the filling openings are sealed with fill plugs. The fill plugs are produced as plastic spheres or as locating bearings produced by non-cutting means. It is disadvantageous in these inclined roller bearings that the rolling elements briefly leave their races in their primary direction of force when passing the filling openings and come into contact with the applicable filling body, subsequently touching down on the rolling element raceway again. This brief interruption in the uniform progress of the rolling elements, together with the fact that either no spacers or only very small spacers can be placed between the rolling elements during filling of the races on account of the cylindrical fill plug opening, prevent high rotational speeds, reduce the maximum load capacity of the bearing, and promote wear of the bearing
DE 11 2004 000,625 T5 likewise discloses geared cross roller bearings in which an inner bearing ring and an outer bearing ring are each provided with a filling opening for receiving the rolling elements that are each sealed with a fill plug after the rolling elements have been inserted. This bearing also has the aforementioned disadvantages.